This has been Chris Childs’ breakout season in New York, especially in these playoffs. In a season he has dedicated to his recently deceased grandmother, Childs has been one of the Knicks’ guiding lights. His coaches believe conversations with his grandmother last summer allowed Childs to turn the corner.

But suddenly, it has gone dark for Childs in the first two games of The Finals. Suddenly he is doing an impersonation of John Starks in the 1994 Finals. Suddenly Childs, who has written his grandmother’s name, Waverl, on his sneakers all season, is producing more like the Childs of ’97 and ’98. And suddenly, Charlie Ward, is looking like the more poised point guard.

Childs is shooting 2-for-16 in the first two games for a total of six points. He was 1-for-8 in Game 1 and vowed things would be different in Game 2. They weren’t. Childs finished 2-for-8, his last bucket a meaningless unattended layup at the buzzer.

Childs knows the Knicks would not be staring into the abyss tonight if he was playing with the grace he had displayed much of the season.

“If I was making shots, it would be a different story. Maybe we wouldn’t be talking about 0-2,” Childs said before practice at the Garden yesterday. “I have to make shots. The shots are there. In the other series, we hit open shots. I hit open shots. The first two games I haven’t hit them. But I’m not going to stop shooting.”

Childs admits the Twin Towers has made life difficult for him. “You have to adjust your shot because of their length,” Childs said. “You have to take the ball to the basket but make better decisions when you get there. That’s not what we’re doing.”

So he faces the game of his life tonight. No one on this team wants a championship more than Childs, for his grandmother’s memory, if nothing else. After the Knicks had disposed of the Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals, Childs said the only downer was his grandmother wasn’t around to see it.

In a recent interview with The Post, Childs’ eyes became moist with tears as he explained why he had dedicated the season to her. Waverl, age 79, was killed in a car wreck on Oct. 15 when a truck hit her vehicle in an intersection as she was being driven by a friend to a church in Bakersfield, Calif. She had battled all the way back from colon cancer and was in remission.

Waverl lived next door to the Childs’ house throughout Chris’ childhood and up until the day of her death. “I would come home from school, college or even now and she was on the front porch or watering her yard,” Childs said. “Whatever was going on in my life at the time, it didn’t matter because her smile just made everything that much better. She would always say come over here and let’s talk. She was a great friend. I remember [this summer] we had a long talk about the homeless and church. I was able to just get away from basketball around my grandmother.”

Knicks assistant Don Chaney noticed a marked difference in Childs when he reported for training camp in January. Particularly, no more ref baiting. “He came back a different guy, with a different perspective on life,” Chaney said. “”He spent a lot of time with his grandmother, there were a lot of conversations. She sort of set him straight in terms of maturing and getting his life together.”